Legal & General is one of the UK’s most well recognised insurers. Trading since 1836, Legal & General is also a leading provider of Annuity products. Legal & General offers a traditional Lifetime Annuity allowing you to add the usual options such as spouse’s pensions, guaranteed rates, and indexation, at a fixed rate or in … Read more
Aviva, formerly known as Norwich Union, offers a comprehensive range of Annuity products to meet a wide variety of needs. As you would expect, Avivahas a traditional Lifetime Annuity product with all the usual options including guaranteed rates, spouse’s pensions, and a choice of payment frequencies, for example, monthly or annually, both in advance and … Read more
Annuity rates, who is currently offering the best value?
Posted by in Annuities | Annuity Rates - (Comments Off)We all know Annuity rates have fallen over recent years and lower gilt yields have reduced Annuity rates still further over the past few months. As the trend is still downwards and with no sign of an increase anytime soon, we thought we would take a look at who is offering the best rates at … Read more
How should you buy your Annuity?
Posted by in Annuities | Annuity Rates | Pension Annuity - (Comments Off)
It is generally accepted that there are three ways to arrange an Annuity: Accept the Annuity offered to you by your current pension provider Shop around yourself by calling the Annuity providers to get their quotes Use an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) to shop around on your behalf Option 1 rarely produces the best result. … Read more
Last month we looked at Annuity rates and asked when they might start to rise. A month is a long time in the financial world so we thought we would take another look. We concluded last month that there were no reasons to think that Annuity rates will rise in the short term; four weeks … Read more
You’ve worked for years, looked forward to retirement, but you still have one final hurdle to overcome before you can stop work; you need to turn your pension into an income.
The prospect can be daunting.
A few weeks before the all important day you will get a retirement pack from your pension provider, which tells you how much you have in your pension and helpfully how much income they will give you if you buy an Annuity from them.
How helpful of them to provide such comprehensive information?
There is another way of looking at it.
Your pension provider will want to keep your business. They would be delighted if you simply signed the forms and bought an Annuity from them. In fact, although figures vary, many people do exactly that and do not compare the Annuity offered by their current pension provider with other options.
There are at least 10 ways of turning your pension into an income, we don’t have time here to deal with all 10, so let’s just focus on comparing Annuities. Afterall an Annuity is the most popular option.
The importance of shopping around is shown by one single statistic; of those people who did shop about and took the time to compare Annuities, around 50% ended up buying their Annuity from someone other than their current pension provider.
So why should you look around and compare Annuities? There are three very simple reasons: Read more
Anyone who has been getting Annuity quotes for the past few months will have seen how much rates have dropped recently. The question on the lips of those thinking about retiring soon is of course, when will Annuity rates rise?
To answer this we must look at why rates have fallen over the past few months. Most of us know that the long term trend in Annuity rates has been downward. This has mainly been caused by increased longevity in the UK. Simply put, we are living longer and our pension pots need to stretch further.
However, in recent months three additional factors have come in to play.
Firstly as the UK has been seen as a safe haven and not at risk of defaulting, Gilt rates have dropped significantly. Annuity providers use Gilts to back their Annuities and if Gilt rates fall, then it follows that your Annuity quote will be lower. Read more
What action should I take in the months before I want to buy my pension annuity?
Posted by in Annuities | Pension Annuity - (Comments Off)The recent volatility in the stock market has highlighted the danger of staying invested in stocks and shares, also known as equities, in the months leading up to the date when you want to buy your pension annuity.
Most of us accept that in the long run equities can provide a better return than almost all other asset classes, but in the shorter term they can suffer from extreme volatility. This has been demonstrated over the past few weeks. The world’s stockmarkets have fluctuated significantly on the back of fears that the economic recovery is taking longer than expected and that certain western countries are struggling to repay their debt and may default.
How does the Greek debt situation or political squabbles over debt in the United States affect my pension you might ask?
Well, the simple answer is that, it is likely your pension has some exposure to these markets, and when they fall, so will the value of your pot, leaving you with less money to buy a pension annuity. Read more